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(Thread IKs: harrygomm, Astryl)
 
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Chalks
Sep 30, 2009

coelomate posted:

the stat boosts are already on your new char and entire account. The statue can be clicked still for 10 renown is all.

Have they said anything about how this will work with seasonal stuff? Really not looking forward do doing the renown stuff every season

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Sab669
Sep 24, 2009

coelomate posted:

Level scaling led me to believe this would be more flat. But if I'm right and not just blinded-by-RNG, it helps keep a sense of progression - it's just gated by my level rather than the activities I'm doing or the world tier I'm on.

Cool?

The 'sense of progression' comes much more from piling on Legendary abilities that really expontentially grow your character -- which is kinda weird because it makes the leveling process suck? It's like yeah I hit <skill tree milestone> and got a new ability! But then that stops happening pretty early once you get your Key Passive and then the game feels kinda same for 10-30 levels depending on how stubborn you are about speccing to fit the Drops you've found or not.

But then I found another "spike" of feeling like progession once I started piecing gear together -- then back to feeling kinda flat and samey again now that I'm bored as hell in WT3 but got 1-shot by some random trash when I tried to do the level 70 dungeon at 55 lol.

Astryl
Feb 1, 2005

"15,000 hours of Diablo II isn't that much, dweeb."

Do you think they'll add oskills like in Diablo 2? Would give us a lot of cool combinations for builds.

Though they'd have to ease up on the "every weapon type is for specific classes" mantra that they've apparently doubled down on (bad choice imo).

KajiTheMelonMan
Sep 2, 2004

I killed a Tuskarr

Astryl posted:

Do you think they'll add oskills like in Diablo 2? Would give us a lot of cool combinations for builds.

Though they'd have to ease up on the "every weapon type is for specific classes" mantra that they've apparently doubled down on (bad choice imo).

I mean, I'd love it (even if it comes in an xpac), but I just want more skills slots right now for my own skills. I've got like 3 extra abilities from gear, and even though they're not part of my build set, it would be nice to actually use them for....fun :smith:

(and give us loadouts you fucks, if you can cobble it together in 19 year old WoW, you can do it here)

Doomykins
Jun 28, 2008

Didn't you mean to ask about flowers?
alright some random gripes so I can join insane streamer bros in declaring this game the worst ever made while playing it obsessively.

-Every time I hit an Altar of Lilith and get +5 Obol cap I groan. What a non-reward. If you ever cap obols you'll just port to town, spend them, then go pick up your extra anyway. Why have a cap other than a brute force reminder to engage with the gambling system?

-Silent Chests are just a lame chore attached to any random chest spawn. Another negative content dot on the open world map. They wanted to expand gambling(which is unnecessary) but had no good ideas for it(so it's REALLY unnecessary)?

-Speaking of negative content, there's a lot of RNG events in dungeons and cellars right? Most are fine, but the masteries that can't be done suck. Every time I see the 3 Adventurers I groan: ah, it's a holdout but it's a little worse. These actually eat up dev time(and VA work, etc) to implement to be worse than "kill this elite + pack" so hope they get reworked or even cut. There's also maybe 5 of them total so uh, Blizz, if you commit expand the pool to like 20+.

-Some of the enemy attack spawning design is simply awful. I see the spider web root mentioned every so often, the hitbox for the ground root spawns before the animation in the air reaches the spot. I just fought another cultist mage that spawns 4-8x lightning orbs on top of me where all instantly hit me. Etc. Luckily this seems to be limited to non-story bosses, who are better polished overall.

-It's very silly to introduce horses and then the zone where barriers that demand dismounting appear immediately afterwards. Horses also can't jump down space bar cliffs. Hope these get smoothed out!

-Act 6, near the end: The writers were doing so well everywhere else and Donan goes down to a zombie poke? At least include some extra scenes of him seeing his son being tortured in Hell and approaching, or nut up and give him a real death. Another bad casualty of crunch and editing and for the best NPC in the game!

Astryl
Feb 1, 2005

"15,000 hours of Diablo II isn't that much, dweeb."

KajiTheMelonMan posted:

I mean, I'd love it (even if it comes in an xpac), but I just want more skills slots right now for my own skills. I've got like 3 extra abilities from gear, and even though they're not part of my build set, it would be nice to actually use them for....fun :smith:

(and give us loadouts you fucks, if you can cobble it together in 19 year old WoW, you can do it here)

I have seen a couple people say this, and I largely am a D2 player which only allowed 2 active skills at a time.


How is six total skills not enough?

Sab669
Sep 24, 2009

Doomykins posted:

alright some random gripes so I can join insane streamer bros in declaring this game the worst ever made while playing it obsessively.

-Every time I hit an Altar of Lilith and get +5 Obol cap I groan. What a non-reward. If you ever cap obols you'll just port to town, spend them, then go pick up your extra anyway. Why have a cap other than a brute force reminder to engage with the gambling system?

-Silent Chests are just a lame chore attached to any random chest spawn. Another negative content dot on the open world map. They wanted to expand gambling(which is unnecessary) but had no good ideas for it(so it's REALLY unnecessary)?

-Speaking of negative content, there's a lot of RNG events in dungeons and cellars right? Most are fine, but the masteries that can't be done suck. Every time I see the 3 Adventurers I groan: ah, it's a holdout but it's a little worse. These actually eat up dev time(and VA work, etc) to implement to be worse than "kill this elite + pack" so hope they get reworked or even cut. There's also maybe 5 of them total so uh, Blizz, if you commit expand the pool to like 20+.

-Some of the enemy attack spawning design is simply awful. I see the spider web root mentioned every so often, the hitbox for the ground root spawns before the animation in the air reaches the spot. I just fought another cultist mage that spawns 4-8x lightning orbs on top of me where all instantly hit me. Etc. Luckily this seems to be limited to non-story bosses, who are better polished overall.

-It's very silly to introduce horses and then the zone where barriers that demand dismounting appear immediately afterwards. Horses also can't jump down space bar cliffs. Hope these get smoothed out!

-Act 6, near the end: The writers were doing so well everywhere else and Donan goes down to a zombie poke? At least include some extra scenes of him seeing his son being tortured in Hell and approaching, or nut up and give him a real death. Another bad casualty of crunch and editing and for the best NPC in the game!

1 - Yea +5 Obols is the dumbest thing

2 - Buying Whispering Keys for 20 to get a handful of random items is better than buying one item for 40+. Just buy a handful of keys every now and again when you aren't chasing for a particular Aspect. It's not like they melt if you don't use it within X time. Side note; Murmuring Obols, Whispering Keys, Silent Chests -- what an odd theme :shrug:

3 - Some of the event Masteries almost feel like you must have a group to do them, which is definitely dumb.

4 - A cooldown when you choose to get off your mount is the most obnoxious thing. Or, yea, just teach my stupid horse to climb down ladders and such.

Cantide
Jun 13, 2001
Pillbug

Astryl posted:

I have seen a couple people say this, and I largely am a D2 player which only allowed 2 active skills at a time.


How is six total skills not enough?

couldn't you bind your skills to the F keys in D2?

BlankSystemDaemon
Mar 13, 2009



Ms. Chanandler Bong posted:

No and it's particularly bad going south whereby there is a narrow band of ground you have to click to travel fast before hitting your bar (yes you can move the action bar to the corner but it's the same problem)
Bind a spare mouse button to force move, it doesn't interact with any of the UI elements.
It also lets you move more easily between enemies while on the horse, and off it.

goferchan
Feb 8, 2004

It's 2006. I am taking 276 yeti furs from the goodies hoard.

Astryl posted:

I have seen a couple people say this, and I largely am a D2 player which only allowed 2 active skills at a time.


How is six total skills not enough?

It's a bit rough coming from PoE where you have like 13 but on the other hand in that game usually most of those are always-on buffs that you just toggle and forget about, and you only actively use about 6. I wish Ultimates got their own special slot though, they're supposed to be exciting but with the cooldown it seems it doesn't make sense for most builds to run them.

isk
Oct 3, 2007

You don't want me owing you
put me in, coach

Doomykins
Jun 28, 2008

Didn't you mean to ask about flowers?
Nobody in D2 actually used only 2 skills. You set hotkeys and could use plenty of them. How do you think classes like Necromancer functioned? Summon Skeleton, Summon Golem, No Left Click or Mana Spend, No Curses or Utility? Sorcerer was Teleport, Frozen Orb, nothing else? Even a point in Frost Nova or Static Field goes a long way. And D2 had pure elemental immunity elites. FO only sorcs ideally didn't want to just give up and restart the game if a Cold Immune spawned(though you might feel like it at the time.)

Even if you insisted on only using two "active" skills you'd still do things like toggle your auras and refresh your pets. I played a lot of pet swarm elemental Druid so you know. Spirit, Ravens, Wolves, Vines, Bear, all on hotkeys to be refreshed mid fight, Spirit liked to die to every stray aoe in the game.

Attack on Princess
Dec 15, 2008

To yolo rolls! The cause and solution to all problems!

isk posted:

put me in, coach



I see you're all set to kill the boogeyman.

Mailer
Nov 4, 2009

Have you accepted The Void as your lord and savior?

KajiTheMelonMan posted:

(and give us loadouts you fucks, if you can cobble it together in 19 year old WoW, you can do it here)

You seem to be arguing against investment.


Sab669 posted:

3 - Some of the event Masteries almost feel like you must have a group to do them, which is definitely dumb.

Not spawning enough enemies to meet the requirement seems like something you'd pick up pretty early. The ones that do spawn sufficient mobs wind up having the requirement of vaporizing them the second they all spawn like this was D3. I've just decided mastery doesn't exist.

Rev. Melchisedech Howler
Sep 5, 2006

You know. Leather.
Cool, was in the final boss fight and then got disconnected. Cool.

BabyRyoga
May 21, 2001

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021

Sab669 posted:



2 - Buying Whispering Keys for 20 to get a handful of random items is better than buying one item for 40+. Just buy a handful of keys every now and again when you aren't chasing for a particular Aspect. It's not like they melt if you don't use it within X time. Side note; Murmuring Obols, Whispering Keys, Silent Chests -- what an odd theme :shrug:



Those keys are prob one of the most worthless things in the game. The chests they unlock are pretty rare, and you hardly ever get a single item of relevant power level from opening one. I stopped buying them at like level 40 and prob still have 2 entire stacks just sitting around in stash.

I'd say just unload all your obols for like 15-20 of whichever piece is your weakest whenever you fill up. It's disappointing, but the keys need a huge buff.

coelomate
Oct 21, 2020


Events in dungeons are a trap. I skip them 100% of the time, especially cursed shrines/chests. Works out even with "slay all enemies" - idk if they despawn or teleport me, but gotta-go-fast and I don't care.

The renown, sigil xp, aspect, whisper bounty bonus, etc. are just so much more valuable than drops + rewards from a rando event. Kinda sad.

goferchan
Feb 8, 2004

It's 2006. I am taking 276 yeti furs from the goodies hoard.
I think gambling/the obols cap in its current state is a vestigial leftover from D3 where you'd play for like 30 minutes in endgame and then get enough equivalent currency to fill up your inventory twice-over with gambling items.

Guillermus
Dec 28, 2009



I'm following this guide to level up my barbarian:
https://www.icy-veins.com/d4/guides/barbarian-leveling-guide/

So far I've got Frenzy (1/5), enhanced and combat frenzy for the damage reduction. 5/5 HoTA + Furious HoTA, then Rallying Cry (1/5)+ strategic for fortify, Leap (1/5) then Power Leap for fury generation then Death Blow (1/5)+enhanced. I like the build but the only thing I don't like is Frenzy but I kinda miss D3 barbarian basic fury generator attacks. Lunging Strike looks cool and flay seems good for a rend build? I may swap Frenzy for Combat Lunging Strike or Combat Flay as Bash doesn't look as good as it was on D3 atm.

Any tips?

coelomate
Oct 21, 2020


goferchan posted:

I think gambling/the obols cap in its current state is a vestigial leftover from D3 where you'd play for like 30 minutes in endgame and then get enough equivalent currency to fill up your inventory twice-over with gambling items.

Oh good thought - maybe (nightmare) dungeons dropped obols, so it was a really important QoL thing and got baked in as rewards. Then moved to events and now lol kinda who cares?

LASER BEAM DREAM
Nov 3, 2005

Oh, what? So now I suppose you're just going to sit there and pout?

SettingSun posted:

I found this down the comments for that.

https://twitter.com/Diablo/status/1666964491408674816?s=20

(The hat comment is about the streamer's dumbass hat he wore on camera)

Man, I'm enjoying the game, but this advertising makes me embarrassed to be in the target demo. This feels like something you'd see on Spike TV in 2005.

Sab669
Sep 24, 2009

It's insane how out of whack some Ultimates seem, even within the same class never mind comparing 2 classes.

Leveling a Rogue now; hmmm +80% Damage for 15 seconds on a 60s cooldown... Or one single 200% damage AoE on a 60s cooldown? What a tough choice lol

Perestroika
Apr 8, 2010

Guillermus posted:

I'm following this guide to level up my barbarian:
https://www.icy-veins.com/d4/guides/barbarian-leveling-guide/

So far I've got Frenzy (1/5), enhanced and combat frenzy for the damage reduction. 5/5 HoTA + Furious HoTA, then Rallying Cry (1/5)+ strategic for fortify, Leap (1/5) then Power Leap for fury generation then Death Blow (1/5)+enhanced. I like the build but the only thing I don't like is Frenzy but I kinda miss D3 barbarian basic fury generator attacks. Lunging Strike looks cool and flay seems good for a rend build? I may swap Frenzy for Combat Lunging Strike or Combat Flay as Bash doesn't look as good as it was on D3 atm.

Any tips?

I'm only at level 40 myself, but I've been toying around with similar builds during leveling. Some thoughts:

- Frenzy is one of my favourite fury generators, but I'd argue it pairs better with upheaval plus the upgrade that gives it a stacking bonus to damage for hitting with other attacks. Frenzy fills that up nice and quick
- Lunging Strike is fun and useful all around, it gives you so much mobility that you don't even particularly need charge or leap any more.
- Flay I've not really found that much use for, honestly
- That said, Rend is extremely good and can absolutely carry a bleed build on its own without flay. Huge damage and very solid reach to boot.
- Bash I've also not found too much use for yet, I could see it being useful with a stun/CC build but that seems to require some item bonuses to really come together
- Personally I'm ride or die for Iron Skin when it comes to the defensive options, especially with the healing specialization

Jimbot
Jul 22, 2008

Just hit credits. The campaign was really great! Only thing I really do miss are the big CGI cutscenes to bookend acts. Feels wrong that it isn't the case. I don't have many thoughts on the whole thing since I'm still processing it but overall I liked it quite a bit.

With DLC or expansions (I rather have big expansions than small DLC) I hope they add the following classes (in no particular order): Monk, Paladin/Crusader, Witch Doctor, Wizard. The last seems redundant but I miss my disintegration rays and all that forbidden chaos magic they wielded. Going back to elemental junk is a step down after all that. Maybe a class that combines melee with magic stuff too would be fun.

Doomykins
Jun 28, 2008

Didn't you mean to ask about flowers?

Sab669 posted:

It's insane how out of whack some Ultimates seem, even within the same class never mind comparing 2 classes.

Leveling a Rogue now; hmmm +80% Damage for 15 seconds on a 60s cooldown... Or one single 200% damage AoE on a 60s cooldown? What a tough choice lol

They're pretty good actually they just need synergy from elsewhere.

Death Trap - Take Exposure Key Passive. Hit enemies in Caltrops/Poison Trap, get 1-2+ reductions especially if you're using rapid or multi-hitters like 3 knife Puncture, 360 Flurry(you just pulled everything on top of you and knocked it down with the Poison Trap), etc. Your Death Trap comes out within 20 seconds or less easy. Take the passive where using an ultimate gives you +25-75 energy. Engage, Resource Dump/Death Trap, Aoe Pulls guys into your Poison/Caltrops, Resource Dump, Death Trap or left click until Death Trap/Poison/Caltrops are back up. Constant blendering.

Rain of Arrows - Poison Imbue(+200-250% with 5+ skill points), Impetus, Precision 5 stack, +18% vs Healthy enemies when you're opening(i.e. see an Elite pack) basically snap-shot a screen deleting death wave. Slower and more deliberate for sure, though Preparation is screaming for a build that lets you crack these out every 20-30 seconds instead of every 60.

Dunno what Aspects or Uniques would help here but I'm sure there's a few.

coelomate
Oct 21, 2020


"Of Berserk Ripping" aspect temporarily disabled too FYI, haven't seen that posted ITT:

https://twitter.com/PezRadar/status/1667331472511086593

The Ol Spicy Keychain
Jan 17, 2013

I MEPHISTO MY OWN ASSHOLE
Sorc can reset Unstable Currents incredibly fast with her CDR cutting skills and passives. UC is one of the core skills for many lightning builds.

Sab669
Sep 24, 2009

Doomykins posted:

They're pretty good actually they just need synergy from elsewhere.

Death Trap - Take Exposure Key Passive. Hit enemies in Caltrops/Poison Trap, get 1-2+ reductions especially if you're using rapid or multi-hitters like 3 knife Puncture, 360 Flurry(you just pulled everything on top of you and knocked it down with the Poison Trap), etc. Your Death Trap comes out within 20 seconds or less easy. Take the passive where using an ultimate gives you +25-75 energy. Engage, Resource Dump/Death Trap, Aoe Pulls guys into your Poison/Caltrops, Resource Dump, Death Trap or left click until Death Trap/Poison/Caltrops are back up. Constant blendering.

Rain of Arrows - Poison Imbue(+200-250% with 5+ skill points), Impetus, Precision 5 stack, +18% vs Healthy enemies when you're opening(i.e. see an Elite pack) basically snap-shot a screen deleting death wave. Slower and more deliberate for sure, though Preparation is screaming for a build that lets you crack these out every 20-30 seconds instead of every 60.

Dunno what Aspects or Uniques would help here but I'm sure there's a few.

Fair enough; I just also noticed the Druid ones seemed kinda Whatever. Cataclysm, I think it's called, and Petrify both felt very weak. I wanted to like them but I felt much much stronger when I un-slotted them.

Astryl
Feb 1, 2005

"15,000 hours of Diablo II isn't that much, dweeb."

Cantide posted:

couldn't you bind your skills to the F keys in D2?

Doing this only changed the active skill, it didn't cast the skill.=

JUNGLE BOY
Sep 23, 2019

coelomate posted:

"Of Berserk Ripping" aspect temporarily disabled too FYI, haven't seen that posted ITT:

https://twitter.com/PezRadar/status/1667331472511086593

It’s pretty cool that you have to follow a twitter thread or a Blizzard forum to know about this stuff suddenly not working in game. Good poo poo

Astryl
Feb 1, 2005

"15,000 hours of Diablo II isn't that much, dweeb."

isk posted:

put me in, coach



I think the easy fix here is to make armor only affect physical damage.

Doomykins posted:

Nobody in D2 actually used only 2 skills. You set hotkeys and could use plenty of them. How do you think classes like Necromancer functioned? Summon Skeleton, Summon Golem, No Left Click or Mana Spend, No Curses or Utility? Sorcerer was Teleport, Frozen Orb, nothing else? Even a point in Frost Nova or Static Field goes a long way. And D2 had pure elemental immunity elites. FO only sorcs ideally didn't want to just give up and restart the game if a Cold Immune spawned(though you might feel like it at the time.)

Even if you insisted on only using two "active" skills you'd still do things like toggle your auras and refresh your pets. I played a lot of pet swarm elemental Druid so you know. Spirit, Ravens, Wolves, Vines, Bear, all on hotkeys to be refreshed mid fight, Spirit liked to die to every stray aoe in the game.

I said two active skills. End game D2 was, go to blood moor, kill some monsters if you needed summons, use your CtA shouts, cast all your buffs, set your two active skills and start farming.

There were ways of breaking immunities that were reliant on rune words, and I know for a fact that high level builds weren't using multiple specs to deal with immunities and entirely rested on things like hirelings or CtC curses.

Pre 1.09, sure you might have a meteorb sorc or something, but that almost entirely went away as rune words and synergies were added to the game.

Mayveena
Dec 27, 2006

People keep vandalizing my ID photo; I've lodged a complaint with HR
The limitation of six skills may have to do with consoles/controllers

Sab669
Sep 24, 2009

Astryl posted:

Doing this only changed the active skill, it didn't cast the skill.=

Yea and it made it really easy to swap back and forth between any number of abilities you might have.

Like is an Action Bar a better system? Yes.

Do I wish I had 1 or 2 more skills on my Action Bar? Also yes.

exquisite tea
Apr 21, 2007

Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."


In D2 at minimum you had 2-3 hotkeys for CTA, 2-3 for personal buffs, and usually at least 2-3 attack buttons that you cycled through on right click.

Horizon Burning
Oct 23, 2019
:discourse:

coelomate posted:

"Of Berserk Ripping" aspect temporarily disabled too FYI, haven't seen that posted ITT:

https://twitter.com/PezRadar/status/1667331472511086593

lol just finished a session and i spent the whole time wondering where my bleeding damage was

Magitek
Feb 20, 2008

That's not jolly.
That's not jolly at all!

Horizon Burning posted:

lol just finished a session and i spent the whole time wondering where my bleeding damage was

Yeah, I spent all of yesterday missing the Edgemaster's +34% damage boost and just realized it now. Very cool and good

Koirhor
Jan 14, 2008

by Fluffdaddy
Trying to follow along with some leveling builds but my Necromancer alot of the time feels like I can’t afford to corpse explosion because my skellies dying so fast means I need to use corpses to respawn the skellies or heal them up

Astryl
Feb 1, 2005

"15,000 hours of Diablo II isn't that much, dweeb."

exquisite tea posted:

In D2 at minimum you had 2-3 hotkeys for CTA, 2-3 for personal buffs, and usually at least 2-3 attack buttons that you cycled through on right click.

Protip: In D2, setting hotkeys allowed your mouse scroll to cycle through them all very fast and if you had them in a specific order you could chain buffs or effects.

ie; Hammerdin: Teleport -> Concentration (Active) | Left shift click hammers, scroll wheel back to teleport

As long as the effect was active when the spell was cast they gained the strength of the aura.


My point is more that I'm struggling at least on my Ice Shards build to see how I would need more skills? I don't feel like I'm gaining much by having additional skills but am losing out due to cooldowns.

Doomykins
Jun 28, 2008

Didn't you mean to ask about flowers?
Alright did a round of Tree bounties and then rode around exploring gathering some thoughts. Again I can see this enormous, gaping, horribly bleeding wound where the game got rushed out the door.

Act 1, 2, 3: Pretty good as is! All the set up is here, they flow pretty well, Act 3 is a bit long and Act 2 might be a bit short/wide, probably room to pursue Astaroth to an Act Boss dungeon and kick his true rear end after we kill his big dog. The sudden rush to the burning town and the speed of the Astaroth fight suggests this act was rushed but luckily most of it was done so only the climax gets clipped.

Act 4: Ah, so there was an entire fully mapped region with capital city we didn't have time to go to and do some set up quests in, as well as learn proper set up for Taila, how she met Elias, and where she came from before the whiplash-inducing teleporting in Act 5. Having explored this chunk of the map I can say drat, we missed out. They literally cut an entire act but at least saved the good content and maps for world quest shenanigans. What a shame. Blizzard, honestly, I'd think better of you if you patched more story content in later.

Act 5/6: They're mostly good so I'll just add: an Act 4 where we go to the Kehjistan, get more build up with the Church and Inarius and cap off with a start of the war between Church/Lilith and a fight with Andariel would be a great act 1(of a three act structure) high point followed by the act 2(again, 3 act structure) recovery and character building of act 5 before the big act 6 climax. drat crunch.

Donan: Just gonna say it again: I know crunch hurts but you can't do best boy dirty like that. Patch in a small cinema of him seeing his son in hell. Have Lorath and Donan give into the ambient hate and Lorath lose control. Zombie punch is shameful, Blizz!

Lorath: Rules and good and cool. A touch rushed with the Tree stuff near the end, another crunch casualty I assume. I also found his chapter summaries a bit confusing in retrospect, as I thought a truly surprising twist and great betrayal was coming. Now it only makes sense if he's referring to the future expansion plots since the group held together almost entirely to the end!

Nyrelle: I won't lie, I instinctively pre-cringed when I first saw her. Ahh, a precocious brat who is the true key to everything! But actually she had a good story arc, was a good supporting cast, and she offered a smart insight into not playing by the strings of the villains. Somewhat. Obviously Mephisto is a lot more chessmaster than anyone here and up until the ending it works, since he's one of the seven godly personifications of evil in the setting and leaving us in doubt of our actions is some decent writing. What doesn't work is that ending. Obviously it MIGHT pay off in the future but... ehhhhh, she leaves the only people capable of helping bear the burden, abandons her life's dream and does the most stupidly suicidal thing possible? It wouldn't be Blizzard writing without a fumble in front of the endzone somewhere. It could still be good. It's just really doubtful at the moment and if you cheat and have any meta-awareness then MEPHISTO WON, YOU'RE SO CORRUPTED, YOU DOPE.

Spooky Wolf: One of my favorite parts of the game. Nailed the writing and tone. Mephisto is an old hat at this game. He is immortal. He knows how this plays out and his only real lose condition is if Lilith gets to and consumes his essence. Having him be so composed really sells it and his aid to the player never seems too hackneyed. There's a bit of it but videogame protagonist and all. He also helps sell some of the only mildly convincing "actually maybe you're already evil" in the genre. A+++, can't wait to fight him in the expac.

Lilith: Somebody called her Kerrigan earlier and.. nah? She's pretty consistent, you see. Doesn't have nearly enough history to butcher her own character. She does ultimately end up moving in slow motion plotwise and she is honestly very repetitive. "The Eternal Struggle is bad and I want to stop participating in it." That's it, there's not 6 acts of fine detail to stretch out of this. But she's a fine antagonist, never does anything blindingly stupid or out of character and has a touch of grey morality, though "Lilith was right" posting is entirely for fun since she's far too purely evil in action to actually entertain supporting her. Her primary idea is right, her execution of corrupting and destroying a majority of every place and living thing she encounters is quite demonic and can't be salvaged by one good point. She does get a better run of things than:

Inarius: Continues to bear the crushing sins of being a loser AND denying us the Act Boss Angel Fight we've been due since Imperius. He's actually grossly underutilized and undoubtedly another crunch casaulty. Here's the Inarius timeline: he adds a lot of good world building and set up to Act 1 and the presence of the church in Act 2, then vanishes until Act 6 where he shows up to follow his single-minded motivation to a sucker's end. Whomp Whomp. There's room in Act 4 to show more signs of the building intention of the Church to invade Hell AND their flawed approach going too far in Sanctuary, as well as to have Inarius toss in another moment or two of tragic self-doubt and hubris. As it is he's a lot like the whole stretch of time where he steals the worldstone and you pick it up later without incident: largely pointless. Thanks for the badass cinematic and the world building with the church, though!

Expacs: They did a lot of good set up here so if Diablo and Baal don't show up in the expansions then just a total own goal by Blizzard or malicious management./spoiler]

Assets: It's incredible how much environmental design they did that may only be seen once passing through it on a story mission and not even thoroughly explored and appreciated since you're trained that story dungeons never have much worth exploring. The extra lore bits are nice and as an explore-a-holic I did find them, but drat, I hope some of these get adapted for dungeon tilesets or something.

Likewise there's a lot of unique boss work that demands being used again, especially(Act 4-6) [spoiler]Shades of Andariel/Duriel, etc. Seriously, make a Double Nightmare Super Dungeon to cap a season with and pump their numbers, give us hell.


Monster Design: In a vacuum the monster roster is great. Loads of cool beasts with great models to fight. In execution the campaign is waaaaaaaay too lopsided. I can't believe entire groups of enemies like snake monsters and drowned only show up as single act oddities, but see my above nonsense on how Act 4 probably got cut entirely(there are drowned and cannibals in Kehjistan!) There's also groups like maggotkin and cannibals that show up briefly or in side content and then vanish from the story for half the game. Reskinning cannibals to "zealous cultists" and mixing them in with Lilith cultists, for example. Don't let those animations and AIs linger! You also see the same guys way too often, so while there's enough monsters for good variety they aren't mixed properly.

Skeletons, Zombies, Ghosts, some wild beasts, something interesting, cultists/bandits. And Skeletons/Zombies/Ghosts can be interesting but not when they're 75% of the game. The great Act 4 debacle causes a lot of this but the game just needs a shuffling of enemy placement to avoid the 2-4 act blocks or the world-exploring tedium of fighting the same 3 groups a majority of the time.

Also the hellspawn/demons packs(fallen, balrogs, little butchers, succubi, demon dogs) show up really early and then fill out a majority of act 6, removing the delight of getting to the end of the game and fighting some REAL dangerous trash. It's like the demons, specifically, are missing half their roster. Compare Act 3/4 monsters from Diablo 3 to Act 6 here. Here's hoping they add more, eh?

Hell: Incredible tile set but you won't see it past the campaign? BOOOOO. I hope this shows up in capstones and dungeons because what amazing work to see once and never again. Hell tilesets are some of the best parts of Diablo games Season/Expac work, give me my hellzone with advanced extra dangerous demons, tia.

Thanks for reading all this poo poo so I can get it out of my brain. 8/10 game, maybe 9/10 depending on how end game finds me and support they provide for it with seasons. I expect the expacs to push the game to 9/10 easily unless Blizz pulls an OW2.

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Kaddish
Feb 7, 2002
Anyone know if edgemasters aspect is still disabled? I assume it is.

Edit still disabled

Kaddish fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Jun 10, 2023

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